1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayered ceramic electronic component and a fabrication method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic components using a ceramic material include capacitors, inductors, piezoelectric elements, varistors, thermistors, and the like.
Among ceramic electronic components, a multilayered ceramic capacitor has the advantages of being small, guaranteeing high capacity, and being easily mounted.
The multilayered ceramic capacitor is a chip type condenser mounted on a circuit board of various electronic products such as computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, and the like, to play a key role in storing or discharging electricity. The multilayered ceramic capacitor may have various sizes and layer lamination amounts, according to the purpose and capacity thereof.
Recently, as electronic products have been reduced in size, multilayered ceramic capacitors used in such electronic products have also been required to be smaller as well as to have a higher capacity.
Thus, a multilayered ceramic capacitor having thinned dielectric layers and inner electrodes, to reduce the overall size thereof, and having a larger number of dielectric layers laminated therein to obtain ultrahigh capacity, has been fabricated.
In order to meet the demand for a multilayered ceramic capacitor having a very small size and ultrahigh capacity, inner electrodes of a multilayered ceramic capacitor are formed on green sheets by minimizing the width of margin portions thereof.
Thus, impurities such as a conductive foreign object, moisture, ions, or the like, may infiltrate through corner portions of the inner electrode having a relatively small thickness in comparison to a central portion thereof on the surface exposing the inner electrode, to degrade insulation resistance and reliability.
Such problems may become more severe in a multilayered ceramic capacitor in which a cover layer has a small thickness and a margin portion has a narrow width.